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smc

algebra senior

Problem

Find the largest value for for pairs of real numbers which satisfy .
(A)
(B)
(C)
(D)
Solution
Let , so that . Substituting this into the given equation yields . Multiplying this out and forming it into a quadratic yields . We want to be a real number, so we must have the discriminant . The discriminant is . Therefore, we must have , or . The roots of this quadratic, using the quadratic formula, are , so the quadratic can be factored as . We can now separate this into cases: Case 1: Then, both terms in the factored quadratic are negative, so the inequality doesn't hold. Case 2: Then, the first term is positive and the second is negative and the second is positive, so the inequality holds. Case 3: Then, both terms are positive, so the inequality doesn't hold. Also, when or , the equality holds. Therefore, we must have , and the maximum value of is .
Final answer
A